What is it, then? This moment. These not clean couches, the graffitied table before me, scattered with cigarette butts, cans of Heineken and 7up and Redubll and empty water bottles  a snickers wrapper, some yellow paper, and playing cards. I love the table most for its playing cards. 

I’m not entirely sure if cigarette butts fits honestly to their reality – when being handed the keys for our 16 dorm room, the high blonde girl who was my age or younger, told me, “ no smoking in the rooms in the lobbies,  you can smoke weed, but not cigarettes.”

“Um, ok.”

There’s three vending machines before me, with a red light bulb behind the glass and for the goods. I guess its somewhat like the red light district, the bulbs over glass signifying the “place where the whores live” to put it in the tongue of my sister, it sounds horrible to say – but it is, true.

On the TV the Olympians run, their legs look like gazelles. They are competing for the gold, they are competing to be the best. They are competing, to represent.

The way they pass the baton to the teammate in front of them, traces of the former still catching the speed of the first. It feels like my days on this trip, during travel, but maybe just, always. The days no longer feel like separate occasions. The days and weeks run together, moving and going and walking and seeing and feeling all divided by sleep in a new place every other night. Until when I wake it doesn’t even feel like a new day, it feels like life hardly pauses anymore; it just goes on and on and on and the baton is passed with the first opening of the eyes for the new day.

Jazz music plays while the TV is muted – it is loud and sounds like its from the 20’s. The jazz song, I realize, says, “cigarettes, I don’t smoke them as a rule, but I might have one, it might be fun with something cool” – uh pretty sure my romanticized 20’s jazz song has become some strange, jazz ode of weed. Maybe I misinterpret  It is a tune like falling in love. It is a tune like holding hands for the first time. She sings about Paris in the fall. I’ve just come from Paris this morning – and it was, awful. I had pictured it exactly in the notes of this song. But maybe I should let this song be my Paris instead.

Me and Ashley, at some point in the low dip on the graph of this journey so far, discussed the idea that sometimes the reality is better than any ideal we could have pictured. Like, Budapest and Berlin.

I said how the beauty is that sometimes the reality is better than any idea we could have pictured. Like experiencing Budapest and Berlin. But as for the idea of what should be beautiful? It can be…not quite as the expectations were.

Here I am in Amsterdam. I have been so entirely looking forward to this place – for the craziness. Today we walked through the streets pass the coffee shops and the kids sitting outside and inside smoking. It is not quite strange, the unfamiliarity of it all, but, almost.

It was a long morning – arrived instead of 6 30, at 5 30 am. Nothing open. Slept on the floor of the train station - seats packed full. Half sleeping, half lying with my eyes closed uncomfortably  listening to travelers conversations – a guy who just finished backpacking by himself through Africa, Egypt, South Africa, talking about his experiences. The other two, a kissing couple, touring Europe in their togetherness.

Once you start doing something, anything, you realize how many other people are already doing it, will continue to do it ,etc. Like travelling.

A group of folks who look directly out of the film Almost Famous also await the city’s opening. Girls with their long skirts and boots and face painted with some white markings, and the guys strapped to their beards and guitars.

It is difficult to feel small, to feel weak when you are surrounded by so many doing the same type of journey you set out to have.

Spent my first day here touring the Heineken museum, which was filled with the color green and free samples of beer and possibilities. Tried to hit up night life but thanks to the constant looks of men and catcalls, settled at a cozy bar playing the closing ceremony of the Olympics, and headed back at closing call to the hostel.

I’m going to condense my visit to Paris into my top and lowest moments. It has been…not quite what I expected. It has been, an adventure to say the least. But nonetheless, I have dreamnt of seeing with my own eyes the Eiffel Tower and strolling the streets of Paris since being a little girl.

Top 5 moments in Paris: (they were the best of times)

  1. Turning the corner from the subway, the anticipation in me rising until the Eiffel Tower came into view. It is, without doubt, magnificent.

  2. Sitting by the Seine listening to the street guitarist passionately singing Alicia Keys cover songs. Tourists on their guided river boats cheer for him as they float by.

  3. Playing games of speed with Ashley in McDonalds, laughing wildly as we took consistent turns winning against each other.

 4. Sitting on a park bench, eating our store-bought, cheap dinner of bread, grapes, cheese, and wine. Something I have always wanted to experience.

  5. The muse d’orsay – standing in a room that felt like a portrait of heaven, making me want to believe in angels.                                                              

  Lowest 5 moments in Paris (they were the worst of times)

   1.  Realizing that between the two of us, we had four nights left in Europe, and 5 euro to our name.

   2. The bus-ride out of Paris when the snarky French girls in front of us may or may not have started a verbal, broken language fight with my sister. Can you say long bus ride?

   3. Carrying my pack around all day – from the station, to cafes, to the museum, etc.

   4. Opening the e-mail from my couch surfer telling me he’s so sorry but tonight won’t work after all.

   5. When, due to a jam packed tram, I didn’t see Ashley get off the tram, leaving me to navigate the absolute maze that makes up the Paris subway systems.                              

And then, Paris ended, and the last country on my journey before home began.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Got to chat with mom via Ashley’s phone for a couple of minutes this evening. In signing off, she says, “I love you and I miss you!”

I miss you.

Three normal words, both when separate and strung together. But the truth is, I don’t know if I’m missing the people back home right now. (Is this a little too honest and horrible sounding, for print?) I mean, I miss my mom like it would be great to see her. But also, I like it here. In this cafe when the cafes are changing daily - the streets, the cities, the faces, the countries. I am going, I am changing places, and I’m living my dream of travel.

Homesick is a funny thing. I think really being homesick and missing someone is one of the most bittersweet feelings possible.

Bitter for the longing, and sweet for an emotion that strong.

Me and my sister had a lengthy and emotional exchange about missing people, about homesick. We talk of our parents, some words about growing up and whether we miss them or not. Ashley goes on about dad and I go on in my head with my thoughts, waiting for the train. Ashley steps to find a map. She does not see the tears in my eyes, but the woman behind the bakery counter catches my eyes. Me and this stranger look away, but keep glancing back at each other, aware of each others own existence.

I feel fragile and moveable in a feeling I have not felt in a very long time, and possibly not ever in this way. Aware of the fact that we go about our days and live our lives and want to share it with others, and then maybe fall in love and create a child as the most beautiful thing. And then - for such feelings like I’m having right now, to not even truly miss one another - by wrong doings and distances to fizzle unto moments like this.

These are rare emotions for me. The thoughts, the tears. Theirs something terribly tragic and yet so human about it all.

I looked around me at the young women around me and their children growing up beside them. And at the man sitting near me, and the train passing.  Everything moving, living, and breathing and passing. In that moment I felt as if I could feel the life behind all of it. For a second it overwhelmed me and for a moment I felt scared.

Me and Ashley had an honest exchange when our train arrived. My tears felt extraordinarily fragile. The humanity, the unforgiveness, the mistakes, the regret all mixed into the complications of these relationships within our family. Perhaps it was the moment I felt the most grateful to have my sister by my side. Because as much loneliness as I felt in lacking a feeling of missing, there she was, by my side.

 Ok so here’s the deal - although it’s been quite a number of months now since my Europe trip happened, I still have the memories, the stories written in my journal. I never stopped writing about the trip but lost the time along the way to keep updating my blog. With the beginning of a new semester, these recordings sort of slipped into time to become an unfinished project. But I want to continue posting the memories I wrote months ago, if only to have it out there, somewhere.

Didn’t waste any time getting acquainted with Prague. At one thirty am when we arrived, my couch hosts flatmate Annie, picked us up. Went straight from the bus station to the pub where we met his friends, ordered drinks, exchanged stories, and played the jukebox all night long. Walked back to their apartment in the morning light.

                                                           ………..

Surely Prague has been rated “the best city to visit”, “a must see place” by a good handful of websites / blogs / magazines. That being said, and true, it is a little unbearably touristy. I feel overwhelmed by the middle aged couples and tag along children with their cameras, fold out maps, and souvenir stands.

But, it’s touristy for a reason. We visited the John Lennon wall - a wall covered in graffiti, inspirational quotes, and the likes. Saw the gate absolutely covered in “lover’s locks” - a couple attaches a lock, turns the key, and tosses it in the river. Tomas said the joke is that if your smart, you keep the spare key in your pocket. Saw the famous astronomical clock and the Charles Bridge.

We walked and walked ans saw the sights. Annie works for a segway company so we got to try it out at night. Score. Felt incredibly nerdy, but when in Prague, right??

                                                ……….

At night -

All I have to say is these people sure know how to drink beer. Lots of beer. Started at the student pub. Continued at a rock and roll club. A week ago my idea of Prague was foreign - and sleep was something I experienced nightly. Now the flip flop is true. But I’m here for only a couple of nights - viva la vie.

There are moments, in our days, in our lives, that are - well, wonderful. A few universal ones, such as the first kiss, or the bride walking down the aisle. Or watching Ryan Gosling grab Rachel McAdams in the Notebook to profess, “It wasn’t over. It’s still not over”. These moments we either witness or live, and life just feels, right. Of course its these stereotypical wonderful moments, that when lived, hardly match up to the perfection witnessed. Yet  even the mishap of moments that are “supposed” to be wonderful, at least one day become comical right?

But then there are the real life moments. The ones you cannot even begin to imagine, but when they happen, in life, or in travel, it makes all of the journey worth while. Moments that I personally can’t help but want to forever stick in my mind.

On the way through Slovakia to Vienna, it was one of these moments. Seeing the full rainbow stretched out over the scenic fields (including a few castles) while the sun set outside the other window. Me and Ashley laughing at the surreal ridiculousness of it all, sitting in the backseat of two strangers driving us for hours.

We had gone, in that day, from standing with our thumbs outstretched for the cars for hours. To hiding under a bus shelter while the rain, thunder, and lightning put on their glorious show. And standing in a restaurant in the middle of the Slovakian countryside, staring at our maps, absolutely unsure how we were going to get where we needed to go.

And then - the car-ride and the particular moment of laughing uncontrollably at the way the day turned out - at the beauty surrounding us that truly makes up the images of fairy tales.

I remember thinking, the moment was mine. Mine to have, mine to live.

Spent the entire day exploring. Walked until I felt sure my feet were going to fall off. Marcel is smart, kind, and imformative. Emphasis on informative. If he is not secretly the worlds youngest historian of Krakow, or a tour guide to make money for school, then Im really not sure why not. But sometimes, the walking, the seeing, the touring, snapping pictures, the information - its too much.

I think this was showing in me because when he said he might go to Auschwitz with us but was not sure, I insisted that we would be fine. No need to burden him, no need to go out of the way, etc.

He responded, “I get it, your an independent woman. And I guess at the end of the life you want to be able to say, I did it by myself.”

He had an unnervingly good point.

Visited Wawel Castle in the evening. It was spectatcular. I was most impressed by the dungeon, because it was just so fairytale and yet entirely in front of me. 

It is the sixth day of August. Almost a week into the moth. The month where I will, after a year, once again begin university life. I will move into a new place. I will end my travels for now. Right now, life feels…feels like I can feel it.

Sitting in a café, connected to either a library or bookstore. We aren’t far from checkpoint Charlie where the wall fell.

Listening to Sufjan Stevens’ “Oh god, where are you now?”. With my own life experience of going from being at church every week, very anti – partying, sex/drugs/drinking, etc. and then drastically changing my point of view on most of those topics – I have had thoughts similar to the tile I am listening to.

And yesterday at the DDR museum of Berlin, I saw a chart showing religion of the country. Pre - WWII, Protestants made up about 60% of the country, followed by Catholicism. “No religion” and then finally, “other” both made up small slivers of the moon like chart, while the Protestant section dominated. In the ending year of war, “no religion” made up about 60%, leaving the once prominent religion to experience being a sliver. It was one of the displays in the museum that really stuck with me for some reason. So here I am, with my own thoughts, listening to dear Sufjan.

                                                 …………..

The wall has been built,

The rooms have been tapped.

In theory, socialism captures brilliance.

Oh god, where are you now?

The wall has been covered in graffiti.

The 90 some people that rebelled and hopped the wall,

were shot by the guards, and killed.

War raged. Lovers raged.

Cameras hidden in briefcases clicked away -

snapping photos at the young ones gathering for music.

Lives lived. Lives destroyed.

People disappeared. Protestants disappeared.

What does it mean? Oh god, where are you now?

Arrived to Berlin at 4 30 am. Yes, that’s right – like every other day on this trip, the sun is not up, but that does not stop us. Found an open hotel and basically camped out in their café/bar for the next five hours. Good times.

Met up with our couch surfer, took a nice nap, and continued onwards to explore.  Berlin is already completely different than the places I’ve been so far. Most the places have had incredible architecture, cathedrals, statues, etc. but while Berlin is undeniably rich in history, there is an entirely different feel to the city. The buildings themselves are not necessarily impressive. There is graffiti everywhere. The tram stations are huge and feel like shopping malls. And the people – the people are like living in their own world – diverse, young, and they’ve got this look about them -coiffed hair, thin blazers, skinny jeans, classy shoes, cigarette . But back to young -everyone seems to be in their 20s. Its uncanny. There’s a vibe to the city I’ve never felt before. And I don’t say that to sound hippy or anything. But I think there’s really something to realizing the effect the culture and people of a place have on that place.